Tuesday, 3 January 2012

My 2011

I am aware that today, the 3rd of January, is decidedly past the date unto which 2011 year summaries are deemed acceptable. Fortunately, I don't mind being unacceptable, and I've had a pretty stellar year, so I've decided to blog about it anyway. Sorry :-)

January
- Saw in the New Year in Dundee with my best, Scottish, friends; Jen, Keiran, Carol and Paul
- Started developing Pillow Talk's first prototype after winning £25,000 at the end of 2010
- Was interviewed and accepted onto Cultural Enterprise Office's "Starter for 6" programme

February
- Went to Dublin! Few personal dramas.
- Secured £3k of funding to conduct an IP Audit on Pillow Talk
- Met Ben Folds in Glasgow

March
- This was a very stressful month, with subcontractors letting me down and lots of deadlines
- Finalist in Newcastle University's 'Enterprise Challenge'
- Did a pretty cool project with Newcastle Council looking at how to raise awareness of public art in the city

April
- Went to London to compete as a finalist in the "Disruptive Enterprise" category of NACUE's National Varsity Pitch Competition... and won! :)
- Won a scholarship to MEX Conference in London

May
- Pitched to an auditorium of people at the British Library as a finalist in the National Varsity Pitch Competition and won £10,000!

June
- Won a Shell LiveWIRE 'Grand Ideas' Award
- Got a pretty insane amount of press thanks to Shell LiveWIRE and Jonathan at Wave PR
- Found Meso, my amazing, amazing new product design company who have been a breath of fresh air in Pillow Talk's development process

July
- Reached the end of the six month 'Starter for 6' programme and pitched for funding
- 2 years with John. He was at sea, naturally.
- Went to T in the Park with Jen

August
- Went on holiday to Lanzarote
- Found out I'd secured £10,000 of funding after my pitch at the end of Starter for 6
- My car came back from a BMW service, started making a funny noise and they tried to get me to pay over £3,000 to fix it. Still haven't won that battle.

September
- Busy month!
- Won a Smarta 100 Award and hung out with Deborah Meaden at the awards ceremony in London
- Headed to Sheffield for MADE Festival
- Won 'The Pitch' competition at aforementioned festival
- Gave my first ever proper, teaching-y lecture at Dundee University

October
- I turned 24 and celebrated in Scotland with a nice meal with my closest friends
- Found out I was a finalist in the Shell LiveWIRE Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards
- Worked with Snook on a project for people with Dementia

November
- Definitely the most exciting month of this year! Got so much press and publicity including three radio interviews.
- Travelled to London and spent an amazing few days being judged as a 'young entrepreneur' and experiencing Shell LiveWIRE LIVE!
- Also went to London to speak on a panel of young entrepreneurs during Global Entrepreneurship Week and met some pretty awesome contacts
- Pillow Talk was featured on CNN and my inbox reached a whole new level

December
- Pillow Talk properly entered its final phase of product design, the end is in sight!
- Inbox hit 20,000+ unread emails.
- Full page spread in the Daily Record
- One of my best friends, and the guy who introduced me to John, got married and I photographed his wedding.

2012 is going to be my year. Pillow Talk is going to launch and I'm going to go from running a small start-up to being in charge of a global, internationally-exporting company. This is the beginning of something incredible and I can't wait.

61 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Good luck Joanna Montgomery! This pillow will Im sure be used by thousands of military couples who are worlds away from each other. Pillow Talk has over 2500 "pins" on pinterest.com, many of which are US Military spouses, supporting this product and waiting for it to hit the market. How very exciting for you!

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